Two Guys, A Girl & A Gang War

There's a lot of my favorite directors that had to wait for their second feature film before crafting a classic. Spielberg had Jaws. McTiernan had Predator. Nolan had Memento. Cameron had The Terminator. All had established themselves with smaller films before knocking it out of the park with their follow up. Same goes for John Carpenter whose debut feature, Dark Star, failed to wholly capture the spirit and style that would define the director's body of work. But with his 1976 follow up film, Assault On Precinct 13, he certainly hit the nail on the head.

A stripped down, contemporary retelling of Rio Bravo, Assault shows off everything that makes Carpenter films great...and does them as well as anything he's ever done too.

1/ It's dripping in atmosphere and suspense courtesy of Carpenters trademark long takes and an eerie score (a discordant, oscillating, electronic note that plays disconcertingly for minutes at a time).

2/ It's got that Western vibe, not only in the story department, but in terms of the look too. Dean Cundy lights LA like some desert wasteland on the California/Mexican border.

3/ Like all good Westerns it's about the tension between 'civilization' and the 'wild west'. Austin Stoker is the cop who, despite growing up in a rough neighbourhood and working in a a white dominated workforce, has persevered within society's rules and won, is always doing the right thing. Then you've got the murderous gang outside who clearly have no values or morals, killing Disney child-actress Kim Richards without emotion (in the film's most shocking moment). In between you have the classic Western anti-hero, here played by Darwin Joston (like Ethan Edwards, Shane or The Man With No Name) who, when push come to shove, do the right thing...but just aren't 'good' enough to live amongst civilized folk.

4/ Just like the shooting style, dialogue is minimalist and character is built by looks, glances and action rather than extensive backstories. We learn as much about criminal anti-hero Napoleon Wilson by what he doesn't say, as what he does. His catchphrase "Got a smoke?", isn't just a request...it's a way of provoking a response from people so he can judge their character.

5/ Carpenters score is stupidly effective. The main theme is one of the coolest ever committed to celluloid and helps give the film it's own unique identity.

6/ Structurally it's a film of two halves. The first moving the chess pieces into position while introducing character, location and situation. The second is the drama of the siege as our heroes overcome trust issues and tough moral questions to battle the tide of thugs that tries to breach the station. There's obviously a Night Of The Living Dead influence here as the emotionless gang members could easily be substituted for zombies.

And finally, Darwin Joston, as Napoleon Wilson. Snake Pliskin is cool but Wilson is definetely on the same ultra cool level. The confidence of the delivery, the smart, perfectly delivered one liners and little things too. The surprise he shows in others when they decide to trust him....and the surprise others show when he shows he's more decent then they'd anticipated. If there's a tragedy in this masterpiece it's that Joston never made it to the big time.